It was my 20th Brandos concert, yet the first in almost ten years. The band was on a bit of a hiatus. Now they have a new album (“Los Brandos”) just in time for the tour and speaking of tour, the current line-up is 3/4 of the 1997 summer tour line-up. I approached the concert on 7th June with few expectations. The first positive surprise was the venue (“Hirsch”), a rock pub with more than decent food, a charming staff, and an attentive audience.

Just to see the band on stage again was refreshing, no, rejuvenating! Those melodies and lyrics all came back (well, they never really left) and I found myself smiling while grooving along. Naturally, we all have aged. This wasn’t the sweaty no-compromises act that made me a fan back in 1995. Surprisingly, the show was rather hard rocking with only a couple of acoustic ballads in between. Songs like “The Solution” and “The Keeper” showed the band’s melodic side. Most of the newer songs rocked more heavily. The lead vocals were spot on, the rhythm section more controlled than it used to be.

The old material drew a lot of applause. The songs off the new album were received well, but hardly anyone had heard them before. It didn’t help that half of them were in Spanish and lacked the distinctive choruses that dominated earlier Brandos albums. Also, the newer arrangements take more time to build. The drums usually set in slowly, the rhythm guitar often remains tame until the refrain. I’m afraid that the hook lines didn’t stuck with me the first time around, very unlike my first Brandos live experience during which I heard and simultaneously inhaled killer tracks like “The Siege”, “Hard Times, Come Again No More” and “Not a Trace”.

One of the highlights was the acoustic rendition of “Love of My Life”, which had the audience singing along all the way to the back. The following song, “What Kind of a World”, was probably the most convincing new track. Performed solo by Dave Kincaid, it sounded more like Phil Ochs than CCR. I guess no one would have minded if he had added a couple of old classics right there and then (“The Other Side” from “The Light of Day – the Single” comes to my mind, or basically any other melodic Brandos song).

Was there anything to complain? Well, not really. I enjoyed the concert and I was (and am) happy to see the band back in the limelight. This being said, I could have done without the (in my ears) boring “Let It Go”. Finally, the live energy, the harmony vocals, and (yes, I’m nitpicking here) the fingered bass playing by Ernie Mendillo was missing. Frank Giordano did a fabulous job on backing vocals, make no mistake here. It’s just, well, after eleven shows I’ve seen with Dave, Frank AND Ernie on vocal duty, I’m probably spoiled. Speaking of Frank: In my opinion, he would have deserved lead vocals on a song – be it with “Jailer, Bring Me Water” or his great version of “I Got It” (or “Glory of Love” off his solo record?).

All in all, I’m happy that the Brandos are back and that I’ll be seeing them again this Saturday in Bad Rappenau!

Shindell in Germany – it felt like my patriotic duty to attend the show in Oldenburg last Sunday. The Wilhelm 13 is a sweet, cozy venue. A steady stream of people arrived, every other wondering aloud that they had expected to be the only ones in the audience (partly due to the soccer match Germany vs. Norway, which took place that night.) In the end, the promoters had sold all tickets, making the event not just a musical success.

The show began shortly after 8 pm with “All Wide Open”, preceded by a quick “Guten Abend – that’s all I got”. The first set featured lots of new(ish) songs. “Transit” was more enigmatic than ever. It helped that the sound was very good, particularly the vocals. “Careless” was another early highlight. During “Parasol Ants”, Richard kept glancing at his lyrics book. With “Ascent” he warned the audience there would be mistakes because he hadn’t practiced the song and didn’t have the lyrics at hand. The rendition was spotless, though. This resulted in the situation of all available copies of “Blue Divide” being sold during the break. “Satellites” on the electric guitar had a nice drive. “Atlas Choking” has to be one of my favorite Shindell songs, and that night’s version was awesome.

The second set contained old and new, originals and covers side by side. “We Learned the Sea”, a Dar Williams cover, sounded particularly haunting. The venue wasn’t as hot as the UK pubs, and Richard seemed to appreciate the lack of sweat running down the guitar body. Anyway, “Are You Happy Now?” got some additional “Are You Happy Now?”s at the end and I think Clara lost some line during the last chorus. After announcing “The Next Best Western” and tuning the electric guitar for several minutes, the Western was ditched in favor of “There Goes Mavis” on the acoustic guitar.

“Any requests?”, Richard asked when he was called back for an encore. Silence. Then someone said: “Courier“. Good choice if you ask me. Great song, happy Johannes!

The second encore was a classic. I was just a bit confused by hearing the Joan Baez story while Richard seemed to play the intro to “The Ballad of Mary Magdalen” on the bouzouki. Naturally, “Reunion Hill” was played, eventually.

“Any more requests?”, was the question before the third encore. Silence. Then someone said: “Che Guevera T-Shirt”. “That’s a long and complicated song”, said Richard, considered it briefly, but then opted for “Stray Cow Blues”.

On Saturday, July 4th, 2015, I finally got to see Help! A Beatles Tribute. Two band members used to play with The Brandos, which is why I became aware of this Beatles cover band in the first place. Still, I went to the concert primarily to hear Beatles songs – and, hopefully, to get an idea what a Beatles concert would sound in the year 2015 if John, Paul, George, and Ringo had magically travelled through time (and had even more magically solved their conflicts). So I drove to Schramberg in the middle of the Black Forest. It was a particularly hot summer day and the town seemed very sleepy. As the sun set, however, people flocked to the venue, a beautiful garden area. About 350 people had arrived when the four musicians appeared on stage.

The music sounded terrific, mostly because the songs were and are amazing, but also because the band brought the tracks to life with fervent passion and dedication. This wasn’t about creating an exact copy of the original in terms of looks, chronology, or stage banter. Yet, the songs themselves were performed faithfully to the point where you could just close your eyes and pretend to witness the magical journey through time mentioned above. Here was a group of musicians with strong voices and even more impressive melodies. Song after song, hit after hit, classic after classic – it was a barrage of the very best that music has to offer. The first set was a blazing journey through 2-minute pop symphonies. The second set was more of the same with a few songs off the later albums. I just loved that Help! A Beatles Tribute focused on songs that work in a live setting.

There was hardly any pause between songs. There were no solos, no pointless animation attempts, no tiresome history excursions. Only once in every set did the band encourage singing along (“Yellow Submarine” and “Hey Jude”). Plus, there was a conga-line (Polonaise in German) during “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da”. Naturally, people sang along during most of the songs, anyway. The song selection left nothing to be desired. A few lesser known songs spiced up the show – and similarly to the original, there were a few driving cover songs sounded oh so good. I don’t remember the exact setlist, but the list below should be rather complete. If you get the opportunity to see the band (tour dates can be found here), go to their concert!

First Set:

A Hard Day’s Night
Eight Days a Week
Ticket to Ride
Love Me Do
I Should Have Known Better
Please Please Me
It Won’t Be Long
Rock and Roll Music
I Feel Fine
We Can Work It Out
The Night Before
From Me to You
Please Mr. Postman
Yellow Submarine
Can’t Buy Me Love
I Want to Hold Your Hand
Long Tall Sally

Second Set:

Help!
Day Tripper
Drive My Car
Paperback Writer
Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
I Saw Her Standing There
Get Back
Here Comes the Sun
Come Together
Revolution
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Ob-la-di Ob-la-da
I Wanna Be Your Man
She Loves You
Let It Be
Twist And Shout
Get Back
Don’t Let Me Down
With a Little Help From My Friends
Hey Jude

Encores:

The Ballad of John and Yoko
All My Loving
Yesterday
Roll Over Beethoven
Something

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The Hooters are touring Germany relentlessly. Having seen more than 20 gigs and having written about several of them here, I find it a bit tiresome to write about the regular stuff afterwards. The trend away from lots of jamming towards a tight collection of classic songs and a few other tunes continued at the concert in Neuleiningen on July 3, 2015. The small town near Mannheim used a (gorgeous) castle ruin to stage the show. It was a really hot day, but it became bearable towards the evening. The walls around the court provided some shade and nobody seemed to mind the absence of an opening band. The show was sold-out.

I find it funny that I have never seen the Hooters in the same venue twice. They keep branching out into small towns and other pampa regions. The audiences are remarkably similar (unless it’s a big, big festival thing like Sound of Pop with about 100,000 people in the audience). The front row consists of die hard fans. They are rocking out from the first note on. The rest of the audience needs a few songs until they start grooving along. It helps when “Day by Day” appears early on. The Neuliningen concert featured a surprisingly large number of songs off “Nervous Night”. I was happy to hear “Hanging on a Heartbeat” for the first time. I’d suspect, however, that German audience are well familiar with the subsequent albums, too. From what I read in interviews, “Zig Zag” isn’t the band’s favourite album, so that might explain the reluctance to go beyond “500 Miles” and the occasional “Deliver Me”. The first encore, “Give the Music Back”, made a strong case that the album does deserve some of the limelight.

From “Karla With a K” onwards, everybody was eagerly cheering, singing along, and simply having a great time. Naturally, “All You Zombies” had paved the way, and the German parts of “Private Emotion” elicited a strong reaction. All in all, it was yet another excellent gig that underscored band’s reputation as a live band.